Dartmoor Gliding News-Wednesday 15th September 2021

A blanket of fog over the local area resulted in a slow arrival of members at the club today. Unperturbed they set about getting ready to fly as the RASP forecast was for 3.5 stars and a cloudbase of up to 3500ft.

K13’s waiting for Dartmoor behind to reappear.

The first visitors arrived, but the cloudbase stubbornly refused to lift.

Brentor Church still shrouded in cloud.

Eventually at 11:24 Hugh and I decided to take a launch to check cloudbase and general conditions. Although we launched through a hole to above cloud, I decided that training could commence, but Hugh would hang on before flying our visitors.

Our view above cloud.

During our flight John and I undertook an exercise to banish John’s nemesis of rushing his eventuality procedure. The equivalent of six eventualities soon had this sorted. More on John’s flying later.

Hugh briefed the first visitor, Mike Dunbar ready for his two flights and was soon off into the air.

Mike receiving his certificate from Hugh.

Richard Lloyd was next to fly with Hugh. Richard enjoyed a 32 minute soaring flight.

Thumbs up after Richard’s flight

K13’s sharing a thermal.

Hugh’s final visitor was Colin Parnell who enjoyed his two flights.

Colin gets his deserved certificate.

Another visitor today was Jamie Steel. A Royal Navy Assistant rated instructor who has bee posted to Plymouth and has instructed at Lee On solant, Upavon and Middle Wallop. Jamie is looking at becoming a member of the club and adding to our instructor team whilst posted to Plymouth. After a site familiarisation flight and an eventuality flight, Jamie enjoyed a solo flight in the K13.

Jamie refamiliarizing himself in the K13 front seat.

Robin Wilson enjoyed two flights with me trying to iron out a couple of rusty imperfections on his road to re-soloing sometime in the future. One of his flights was of 21 minutes showing the soaring skills were still there, although more refinement is needed.

Mo Khouribich jumped into the front seat for his three training flights and started getting used to the top part of the launch and release.

Andy Davey (Libelle), Richard Roberts (Discus), Steve Lewis (K8) and Gavin Short (K8) all tried their hand in the varying soaring conditions. The longest flight being 41 minutes claimed by Andy.

Andy Davey soaring with the K13.

Twin Astir P1 pilots Malcolm Wilton-Jones and Phil Hardwick shared flights with Malcolm Roberts and Robin Wilson in various combinations.

At the end of the Day, with the benign conditions, it was time For John Smith to step back into the K13. Having had the day to think about the eventualities earlier in the day, he faced an awkward height eventuality and a power failure. These were executed flawlessly, other than rapping my shin when opening the airbrakes (me not paying attention). So there was only one thing for it, send him off on his own. Worryingly the last two times I have done this, we have plunged into lockdowns. Hopefully not this time. Two successful solo flights sees John on his road to the K8 sometime soon.

John about to re-solo.

Thank you to all at the airfield who welcomed all our visitors giving them the Brentor friendly welcome. Also to all who winched, retrieved and generally kept things running smoothly achieving 33 flights

Peter Howarth